Part 10 (1/2)

”Maybe not, but you need rest,” Bill said quietly. ”Quit thinking things. It'll be all the same a hundred years from now. Go on to bed.

You'll be more comfortable.”

Thus peremptorily commanded, Hazel found herself granting instant obedience. The bed, as Bill had remarked, was far more comfortable than sitting by the fire. She got into the blankets just as she stood, even to her shoes, and drew the canvas sheet up so that it hid her face--but did not prevent her from seeing.

In spite of herself, she slept fitfully. Now and then she would wake with a start to a half-frightened realization of her surroundings and plight, and whenever she did wake and look past the fire it was to see Roaring Bill Wagstaff stretched out in the red glow, his brown head pillowed on one folded arm. Once she saw him reach to the wood without moving his body and lay a stick on the fire.

Then all at once she wakened out of sound slumber with a violent start.

Roaring Bill was shaking the tarpaulin over her and laughing.

”Arise, Miss Sleeping Beauty!” he said boyishly. ”Breakfast's ready.”

He went back to the fire. Hazel sat up, patting her tousled hair into some semblance of order. Off in the east a reddish streak spread skyward into somber gray. In the west, black night gave ground slowly.

”Well, it's another day,” she whispered, as she had whispered to herself once before. ”I wonder if there will ever be any more like it?”

CHAPTER VIII

IN DEEP WATER

The dawn thrust aside night's somber curtains while they ate, revealing a sky overcast with slaty clouds. What with her wanderings of the night before and the journey through the dark with Roaring Bill, she had absolutely no idea of either direction or locality. The infolding timber shut off the outlook. Forest-clad heights upreared here and there, but no landmark that she could place and use for a guide. She could not guess whether Cariboo Meadows was a mile distant, or ten, nor in what direction it might lie. If she had not done so before, she now understood how much she had to depend on Roaring Bill Wagstaff.

”Do you suppose I can get home in time to open school?” she inquired anxiously.

Roaring Bill smiled. ”I don't know,” he answered. ”It all depends.”

Upon what it depended he did not specify, but busied himself packing up. In half an hour or less they were ready to start. Bill spent a few minutes longer shortening the stirrups, then signified that she should mount. He seemed more thoughtful, less inclined to speech.

”You know where you are now, don't you?” she asked.

”Not exactly,” he responded. ”But I will before long--I hope.”

The ambiguity of his answer did not escape her. She puzzled over it while Silk ambled sedately behind the other horses. She hoped that Bill Wagstaff knew where he was going. If he did not--but she refused to entertain the alternative. And she began to watch eagerly for some sign of familiar ground.

For two hours Roaring Bill tramped through aisles bordered with pine and spruce and fir, through thickets of berry bush, and across limited areas of gra.s.sy meadow. Not once did they cross a road or a trail.

With the clouds hiding the sun, she could not tell north from south after they left camp. Eventually Bill halted at a small stream to get a drink. Hazel looked at her watch. It was half past eight.

”Aren't we ever going to get there?” she called impatiently.

”Pretty soon,” he called back, and struck out briskly again.

Another hour pa.s.sed. Ahead of her, leading one pack horse and letting the other follow untrammeled, Roaring Bill kept doggedly on, halting for nothing, never looking back. If he did not know where he was going, he showed no hesitation. And Hazel had no choice but to follow.

They crossed a ravine and slanted up a steep hillside. Presently Hazel could look away over an area of woodland undulating like a heavy ground swell at sea. Here and there ridges stood forth boldly above the general roll, and distantly she could descry a white-capped mountain range. They turned the end of a thick patch of pine scrub, and Bill pulled up in a small opening. From a case swinging at his belt he took out a pair of field gla.s.ses, and leisurely surveyed the country.

”Well?” Hazel interrogated.

She herself had cast an anxious glance over the wide sweep below and beyond, seeing nothing but timber and hills, with the silver thread of a creek winding serpent-wise through the green. But of habitation or trail there was never a sign. And it was after ten o'clock. They were over four hours from their camp ground.